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Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Onabanjo of Itu Meko

9/24/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
Magbo Helmet for Oro Association Rituals, by Onabanjo of Itu Meko (Yoruba People) (Nigeria) c. 1880-1910
   
    Secrets
​                                  "All human beings must pass through Knoena Ayanmo,
                                    which translates to destiny or fate --"
                                                                                   A Yoruba belief

                                    "When I take my girl to the swimming party,
                                      I set her down among the boys.
                                      They tower and bristle, she stands there, smooth..."
                                                 Sharon Olds, The One Girl at the Boys Party

     In the years when we were free    slaves only to the music
     of our hearts, I dreamed    I carried my daughter home

     singing down the river    transported by a mermaid --
     and O how her scales did shine!    The Elders of the tribe

      had said Never look at the Oro    because you are a woman!
      But I dyed my fabric with indigo    the colour of deep-blue water,

      and ignored the men    except for this one thing:  which one
      would be my daughter's father?    One of the Elders

      had warned me    that my eyes would be eclipsed,
      like the sun, if I looked    when the moon shadowed

      daylight    and the great bird cried out, rising from the head
      of a mounted warrior;    and because I am a woman I must beware

      of he who wants to learn (not fight)    to write or to be an artist
      holding the blank page of a beginning.    So I considered

      the accordion player    who'd carved an amulet from mother-
      of-pearl so it looked like ivory.    He kept it hidden in a batik bag

      during the Festival when his instrument sighed    with a swishing sound --
      a whoosh of air --    making it sound like the voices of the trees

      when the Oro is coming    his magic soft as a secret, like rain falling
      until the night's broken open    by the crash of the bullroarers

      and I cover up my ears --    but not my eyes like I'm supposed to --
      as the preacher speaks in a loud, loud voice    so all the men

      will know he's serious    when he talks about sacred instruments
      and the power of the Oro;    who looks splendid, I think

      in a robe covered with shells    his lips red as blood
      when the river goddess winks    at the blacksmith

      who made the iron nails    to fasten all my choices
      (to be fathers, that is)    on a wooden helmet

      with the river mermaid's face    because it's she who knows
      my community's fate:    call it destiny -- a secret -- the golden infant

      Onabanjo sculpts    when I'm the only woman on the Oro's helmet
                                                                       
                                                                                          holding my Itu Meto boy.

      Laurie Newendorp

Laurie Newendorp's recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationship between art and poetry; and in the case of the Magbo Helmet, the influence of anthropology.  The Oro is thought of as a god by the Yoruba People of West Africa, a place where magic is a part of nature.  Nails to hold thirteen figures to the Magbo Helmet is unusual, and more contemporary than carving the entire helmet from a single piece of wood, so the woman's voice in the poem is modern, from a time when Yoruba People returned home bringing multi-cultural art elements, freed from enslavement in Brazil.

​**

A De Ni Alafi

                 Eewu bę loko Longę, Longę fun ara rę eewu ni…(Yoruba proverb).
                (Translation) There is danger at Longę's farm (Longę is a name of   
                a Yoruba Legend), Longę himself is danger.
                (Meaning) You should be extremely careful of situations 
                that have a past history of danger.
 
1
We shall drift on God’s back
whose gaze will be steady,
whose face will be
serene with notions
of peace
and rituals of balance.
 
Akin will offset any bobbing
by carrying a great white bird
above his head.
 
The mal de debarquement
with never occur because the bird
keeps the sea mirror-flat,
the direction true.
 
Stand erect with your gifts
as you sail across the boundary
between two worlds.
 
2
It is black night
but Aabdar tends the moonlight
like a prayer
and illuminates the crew
whose motion is powered by 
Emenike who pumps 
the Juju melodeon and sings
on the mountain, in the valley,
on the land and in the sea;

my God is my portion in the land of the living;
my God is good for evermore.

3
Aadesh carries the message
of harmony
in a gold satin satchel.
 
Aadesh was given the remedy
of language
which he must carry carefully;
should he drop one letter
it will drift to the sea bed
causing the other letters
to pile into one another
unable to spell anything.
 
4
Aaeedah carries a hat box
in which there may be a hat.
All gestures of reconciliation
come with risk.
 
Bolade listens to a tambourine
only she can hear.
Often this is the only way.
 
Abayomi carries the golden child
who is all children.
Should the guests refuse this child
 
the journey home will be tumultuous,
the joy absent,
 
and Amadia will hide
the spirit of lightning
under his coat,
beginning already
to plan the next journey,
perhaps with different travelers,
perhaps with a antidote,
perhaps with a cargo
of loneliness that will
carry them back empty,
ready, as always, to be replenished.

John L. Stanizzi

John L. Stanizzi - author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, POND, The Tree That Guides Us Home. Besides Ekphrastic Review, John’s poems are in Prairie Schooner, Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, New York Quarterly, and others.  John’s nonfiction has been in Literature and Belief, Stone Coast Review, and many others.  He was awarded an Artist Fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction, 2021 from the Connecticut Office of the Arts and Culture. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com

**
​
We Are Ancient

we are ancient 

magic and burning embers
mirror images of souls shatter’d in bone
kept for the ages, for historians to argue over
chewing the fact with opinion after opinion
fighting over our opaque messages in gold

driven by a circus dissolved into horizons
time and the end are needlessly near
           we are gifts under a tree, shadowed, twisted
wearing memories soaked in lime and salt
drift down the pathway to our hearts

a song from the wild, birds once hanging
like lanterns in the trees, like dew
           we are lava dreams that swarm over the land
swiped and reduced to hardened labour
always in our hearts, only one wears the crown

and when he stands we will all be free

Zac Thraves

Zac Thraves is a performer, writer and speaker who lives in Kent. His latest book about coming to terms with anxiety and depression is being adapted into a show; the book is available on Amazon. He presents workshops on mindset and emotional balance using pop culture. Poetry has been published by Nitrogen House and Scrittura Magazine; The Ekphrastic Review, and some are on Youtube. You can follow on Twitter - @28thraves or Insta - @28zacthrav

**


Who Am I?

Several months ago my doctor asked,
Do you remember any past lives?
No
! I said. 

Now I’m not so sure. Here I am
in a dream, surrounded by African villagers.
The people all know me, accept me 
as one of them. I know them, too, 
from the prisoner, nursing mother, 
bandoneon player, and dandy,
to both the warrior and his horse.

We’re the Oro, a cross section of village life,
a jury to bring justice to all our people.
I nod at the scribe, here to record 
our meeting. That’s my favorite job.
On waking I can’t recall the outcome
of the trial, but my conscience is clear –
only how do I know about the Oro?

Weird dreams are my norm –
talking animals and nameless quests –
but this is different. A week later,
I’m on a museum tour in a strange city. 
My legs shake when I spy my dream squad 
posing atop a Magbo helmet. 

Who’s the large face below the villagers?
Me? 
Any moment I expect to hear
the voice of Rod Serling. 

Alarie Tennille

Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. Thanks to fellow poets, who generously share the hottest poetry news, Alarie visited The Ekphrastic Review a few months after its birth and decided to move in to stay. She is a consultant for prizes, occasional judge, and received one of the first Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards in 2020. Please check out her three poetry collections on the Ekphrastic Bookshelf.

​**
​
Mom and I Go Shopping for Masks Before We Learn We Need to Grasp the Concept of Cultural Appropriation
 
And it’s just as well, as we wouldn’t have been able to deal with the guilt on top of everything else, Dad just having croaked and us in the hospital gift shop at the very moment he slipped away.  Our cells ring at the same time. We stare at each other. Maybe if we’d waited to take a break, or gone a lot earlier? Or maybe he and his oncologist had a secret pact and maybe that doctor pushed a little more morphine than required, held off till we couldn’t see. Maybe doesn’t really count anymore. We take the elevator to his room on the 5th floor. Just enough time to absorb his vacancy then leave the room when they come to scrape off his corneas. Mom signs all the papers. We make a few calls, don’t know what to do with ourselves next, head to the parking garage.
 
“That new folk art store’s just opened.” Hushed, her husky Tallulah voice, seductive in any occasion. It’s not like our homes aren’t overflowing with handmade objects from lands other than ours, but we drive over to check it out. An African vendor at the counter is showing his wares to the owner, whose mouth twists with disinterest. But Mom and I know. This is not airport art. 
 
We sidle over to the seller, smile. “Meet us outside,” our voices low, conspiratorial. He does. He opens the rear of his van. The smell of campfire smoke rushes out, cloaks us, confirms authenticity. These masks have been danced, at night, under stars. Or maybe the wool’s being pulled over our eyes. We don’t ask. Or care. We have always favored the ease of presumption. Besides, distraction is the point, and it’s here in spades. We scribble mom’s address on a piece of paper, point which way to turn first. Fifteen minutes later, her arc of the cul de sac is lined with carvings, face masks, helmet masks, the odd basket. Mom and I shuffle sideways, shoulders pressing, like Chang and Eng, not speaking, pointing to this one, then that. Bobbing and shaking our separate heads.
 
A distant cousin from across town chooses that moment to come pay her respects. Isn’t she a bit early? She surveys the scene — the masks, us, the vendor. Back to the vendor, us, the masks. She can’t quite work out what’s happening so lands on that default sympathy face everyone hates but knows how to give, then mumbles, “He’s in a better place,” a no less despicable offering, shuffles backwards to her car. 
 
Mom and I nod, not at the cousin’s purloined propriety nor at her sweeping Uriah Heep exit, but at this mask and that, already putting nails in our walls.

Mikki Aronoff

Mikki Aronoff’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, London Reader, SurVision, Rogue Agent Journal, Popshot Quarterly, South Shore Review, The Fortnightly Review, Gentian Journal, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and elsewhere. A two-time Pushcart nominee, she is also involved in animal advocacy.

**

Power of Oro

Oro, do not disclose our most secret task
Ride upon your steed, sacred avian perches
Over all, sentinel, protector of our people
Warriors, bards, infants in arms, those who fill
Air with chants and music, celebratory wine
Render our past within scrolls, carry all into battle
Rejoice in our gods, survival of Oro, most wise
Intelligent elder, each purposeful; walk the path
Oro shall keep vigil, upon his head, mighty strength
Reduce enemies to harmless as we march on

Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson is a poet who loves challenges, from nature to current events, from captive elephants to teen issues of bullying. Ekphrastic writing has become a mainstay. Her poems appear in many journals including Misfit, Open Door, Sledgehammer and The Ekphrastic Review; full length works are available on Amazon. Dickson is a Pushcart prize nominee who participates in many workshops and coordinates 100 thousand poets for change. She shares her home with rescued feral cats, Cam and Claire.

**

Emergence Song
 
We come. We come from the great unknown.
We come to welcome you into the world.
We celebrate your arrival from the dust 
into fully created by the One-Who-Starts-The-World.
We come bringing music of life. All will follow you.
We emerge. We merge of out clouds, 
from a distance you can’t imagine. We greet you.
We’ve been watching for you. 
Once you were nothing, now you are present 
like the land and stirring waters.
All this is yours now. Protect it 
and love it. We will be watching to see how you do.
Nurture the land and the food growing from plants.
Do not harm the ones following you. 
We hope you will spread words of kindness 
to those still waiting to arrive. We will be watching
to see if you do. Here. Here is the great Ibis. 
Learn how he moves among the land and water, 
and befriends the cows. Do the same. Learn.
We will be watching you. We trust you 
to do wonderful surprises for a long time.
On my head, you will find my thoughts 
offering ten more treasures. You are in my dreams
and now you are real as the Book of Life, 
one of the many treasures. Be careful
when you open and use it, and we will be watching.
All this world is in your care. 
Do what is right and proper. See this other gift.
This one is music so you can sing to your mate. 
The Great Ibis has dipped his beak into creation 
and provided one. Take care of your mate.
We see your mate already slipping into your arms.
This is how to learn compassion. Now use music 
to sing to each other how you love each other.
See how gifts multiply and intensify.
Look at the treasure chest of stories. 
Place your story inside and share your stories 
with those that follow after you. 
We will watch what you say. 
Make the stories good ones. Now I am thinking 
of offering you the gift of hearing each other 
before responding. I believe this is helpful. 
And instead of telling you about all the other gifts, 
maybe I should encourage you 
to explore the rest of the gifts. We trust you will know
how to use them well. But we will be watching, 
closely, because each gift has both good 
and bad uses. Some gifts might fall into disrepair
if you do not carefully use them. 
Remember to always love and encourage others, 
and nothing bad will happen.
Take care of the earth, 
because you arrived out of the earth, 
and nothing bad will happen to the earth
if you take care of it. Welcome all the plants, 
trees, animals, and sunrises. Take care of them.
Welcome them. We will be watching at a distance.
When you look into the sky, you will see us watching.
Now we are leaving. We are leaving you 
like a dream leaves when waking.
We are leaving, we are leaving, we are leaving, 
be careful how to use your gifts.
We already see you won’t use them correctly.
We hope we are wrong. 

Please prove us wrong. We are leaving.

Martin Willitts Jr

Martin Willitts Jr, edits the Comstock Review.. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including Blue Light Award The Temporary World. His current book includes Harvest Time (Deerbrook Editions, 2021).
​
**

The Mask of Many Parts
 
I am the maker of Man,
in all things there is balance.
 
I can shape a mother’s breast,
create the curve of kindness,
 
chisel out the preacher’s mouth,
his breath an incantation,
 
fret and mold a musician’s voice
to hone notes of sorrow and joy,
 
chip     rub    whittle   trim
trace   hew   stipple   skim
 
I can sculp the prisoner’s conscience
into something bright, enlightened,
 
model the hands of medicine man
so he can heal the ailing,
 
smooth the elder’s angled chin
to meld with wit and wisdom,
 
slice      gorge   rend   rip
cleave   grate    hack  split
 
I can forge the warrior’s sword,
his crown welded tight to helmet,
 
mount the gold on a soldier’s metal
arm him with weapons of war,
 
cast the eagle, wings of bronze
to mask the edge of the abyss,
 
heat    torch   singe  sear
ignite   melt   engineer.
 
In all things there is balance,
I am the maker of Man.
​
Kate Young

Kate Young lives in England and has been passionate about poetry since childhood. She generally writes free verse and loves responding to art through ekphrastic poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Village, Words for the Wild, Poetry on the Lake, Alchemy Spoon, Dreich and Friends and Friendship.  She has had poems in two Scottish Writers Centre chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness is due to be published by Hedgehog Press next year. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.

**


Ancestors
 
Unravel mythologies
fabrications of generations
carried over seas and oceans
wrapping around limbs, seaweed
weaving old wives tales.
 
Cut against coral, freeing ankles:
bleeding gashes worth the unravelling 
into measured strokes and hefty breaths 
of air, spitting out 
deceptions.
 
I am not moved by statues 
by false idols, or prophets
calling out doomsday predictions. 
 
But by those who seek refuge 
on shores that hold tired limbs 
in open palms

Eleni Gouliaras

Eleni Gouliaras is a Scarborough poet. Her experience living with major depressive disorder shapes her writing. Her poetry touches on mental health, resilience and resistance. Her poem "Capitalism*2mg" was a winner for the 2020 Power of the Poets contest. Her poem "Proceed with Caution" is published on Pamenar Press online magazine. Her poem "Silence" is published on the Scugog Council for the Arts website after winning 2nd place in the Voice of the Arts Literary Contest 2020. Her writing also appears in Feel Ways: A Scarborough Anthology, released in April 2021. Her poem "Pulse" appears in the August 2021 issue of The Quarantine Review. She is busy studying to become a Library Technician, but poetry always finds a way into her life. 

**

Beasts of No Nation 
 
When you told me your father worked in the oil business,  
I pictured a ruddy guy in grimy denim coveralls and dented white hard hat, 
Standing next to an oil derrick in Texas -- the kind that often catches fire. 
Your family’s home movies from the oil company compound in Lagos, 
Where you grew up -- set me straight. 
Pin-the-tail on the donkey games I played at childhood parties in White Plains, 
Couldn’t hold a blindfold to the Yoruba dancers celebrating your thirteenth birthday.  
Thirty or forty Nigerian women and men rhythmically paraded through your backyard, 
Soundlessly singing a Fela Kuti song.  
The men’s white lace-embellished trousers and the women’s elaborate headwraps 
Were vibrant in silent 16mm Kodachrome.  
Your pet White Throated monkey, Naija, made a cameo,  
Leaping silently from painted porch to your younger sister’s bare shoulder. 
 
Later than fateful afternoon, your mother couldn’t find the cash 
She’d stashed in the cookie jar, a ceramic elephant boy outfitted in a sailor suit.  
By nightfall, the jig was up. 
Peter, the teenage Yoruba houseboy, was arrested for theft. 
Later that year, they shipped you off to a Swiss boarding school, 
Because there was no American high school in the company compound 
And because you were beginning to like the local ganja too much. 
 
You have spent a difficult life trying to sort your place, your roots . . . 
Living in the darkness of your corporate father’s oily shadow. 
I guess it’s true if our fathers sinned, and are no more, 
It is we who have to bear their iniquities.  ​

Jude Bradley

Jude Bradley’s prose has aired on National Public Radio and has been published in Teaching in the Two-Year College journal, and Momentum magazine. Her poetry has been published by literary journals including Tupelo Press and Thimble. Jude's poem “Argos” was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart Prize. Her poetry and flash fiction re-envision classical literature and art and reflect on urban life in an ever-shrinking, ever-expanding world. She is lifelong writing teacher who loves to sing, dance, and garden. She is the Reverend Al Green’s most devoted fan.

**

A Chieftain’s Burden

The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker,
the smithy, the quack, the shaman,
the drummer, the trumpeter, the singer,
all ride on the horns of a giant ram
parading through town
on this helmet
sat on the head of the chieftain
who walks alone
guided by the light of the north star
and feeling the earth rotate beneath his feet.
 
In the deepening dusk,
the helmet takes on an otherworldly glow.
The warm community scene so evident by light of day
turns to vague, shadowy blurs reminiscent of monsters and devils.
 
The chieftain breathes a sigh of relief,
reaching the temple gates
for here, he can finally unburden himself
unburden himself of
the weight of the helmet,
the weight of the community
the weight of the community that depends on him
and transfer this weighty burden to God.

Nivedita Karthik

Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford and an accomplished Bharatanatyam (Indian classical dance form) dancer. Her poems have previously appeared in Glomag, Society of Classical Poets, The Ekphrastic Review, The Epoch Times, Eskimo Pie Literary Journal, The Poet (Christmas, Childhood, and Faith issues), The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, Bamboo Hut, Visual Verse, and Trouvaille Review. She is a regular participant on the open mic show held by Rattle Poetry. Her micro-stories have appeared in The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She is currently working on her first poetry book. Find more on her blog https://www.justrandomwithnk.com/.

**

Droppings
​
Assorted castings behind us…
still to come and presently
developing into a village.

In mine there have already been
seamstresses, sailors...a tram-driver
and characters in fireside tales

that skipped professions. Time
offers only flash recordings
reduced mostly to fiction.

Earned livings aren’t lives
except to daily comrades;
family hold onto words – advice

orders, beratings, tall tales.
Actions leave scenes behind
of comedy, farce and tragedy.

Irene Cunningham

Irene Cunningham has had many poems in many magazines and anthologies over the decades. Hedgehog Press published a poetry conversation between her and Diana Devlin – SANDMEN: A Space Odyssey. One of her poems was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2019, and she won the Autumn Voices memoir competition. She has recently moved to live in Brighton, and is editing several novels from the back shelves.

**


The Warrior’s Heron

We dance, dance, dance, dancing ourselves away on a world forever turning, turning, turning, turning to you my partners in life and death, as my golden babe suckles at my breast, saying what a magnificent crowd, our heels, kicking up in celebration, worshipping the passing of our lives, grinning, grimacing, grinding against the grain, swallowing our palm wine in frantic gulps, the warrior’s heron our only judge.

Melissa Llanes Brownlee

Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer, living in Japan, has fiction in The Citron Review, Milk Candy Review, (mac)ro(mic), Necessary Fiction, HAD, The Birdseed, Bandit Fiction, Best Small Fictions and elsewhere. Hard Skin, her short story collection, will be coming soon from Juventud Press. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at www.melissallanesbrownlee.com.

**

Wear Me High

Adorned with gold
He wears me high.
A metal bird 
With no hope of flight

He wears me high
For a god on whom they tread.
With no hope of flight
Men and women offer music and song

For a god on whom they tread.
With elongated head
Men and women offer music and song
Wealth, and a child

With elongated head.
Men crafted me.
Wealth and a child
All offerings for prosperity.

Men crafted me
A body, a beak, a wing
All offerings for prosperity
For plentiful crops and long life.

A body, a beak, a wing
With no hope of flight
For plentiful crops and long life
He wears me high

Alison R Reed

Alison R Reed has been writing for many years but only recently took up poetry, and even more recently discovered ekphrasis. She has had poems published in local anthologies and in 2020 won the Writers' Bureau poetry competition. She is a long time member of Walsall Writers' Circle.

**

Wild Things
 
 I struggle to find a foothold in the blackness
of this void, hold the gaze of the thirteen pairs 
 
of irises that bore into my chest. This is the face 
of the obsidian judgement that has kept me in 
 
my place, my feet aligned to the path that 
every woman before me has been taught to 
 
walk, in my land. Straying is punishable. 
One day, I dared to flee the confines of 
 
this cosmos that told me how I should 
view the world from the moment I was 
 
flushed from the womb, from the moment 
I was a helpless suckling clutching at my 
 
mother’s breast. I became the rogue that 
ripped through the palm fronds that roped
 
me in. I was brought back to the fold in 
irons. She floats towards me, grand matriarch, 
 
she of the lidless eyes, red pupils blazing 
with punitive power, while others of my flesh 
 
and blood mutely follow, riding the 
horned carpet of her tresses. I take in 
 
my last breath and exhale. At her bidding 
the ibis will shred my heart and peck out my  
 
eyes - those wild things that dared to dream 
beyond the void, that dared to look askance.
 

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist and poet who serves as a chief editor for Authora Australis. She holds a Masters in English, and is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project. Her poems have been published in both print and online literary journals and anthologies including The Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, Bracken Magazine, Red Eft Review, and The Eunoia Review. She won the 66th Moon Prize awarded by Writing in a Woman’s Voice Journal, and an Honourable Mention in the Glass Poetry Awards 2020. She lives and works in Sydney on the land of the Ku-ring-gai people of The Eora Nation.

**

This Is What I Remember

A last gasp of Summer in mid to late Fall. A night so sticky, so hot, my sister and I were barely wearing PJs. Her face was stuck in a pillow. Mama blasting Santana, my sister sleeping through it.

I remember Wildcat attacking my toes. Me tucking my feet underneath the sheet, and Wildcat pouncing up all wild-like to bite my hair.

I remember wasted laughter in the living room. The hard-driving beat of Jingo. Me pulling the sheet over my head as the African drumbeat drove harder. The conga all power. The chanting tribal. The bed rattling—along with my nerves.

I remember the laughter.

Stopping.

When one of Mama’s friends shrieked, “There’s something at the window!” 

I remember pulling the sheet below my nose and pressing my ear against the wall.

Listening.

Listening.

And Mama’s boyfriend shushing, “I think it wants in.”

The wall was vibrating from the heavy hypnotic percussion, surging through my body like a conjuration. The record skipping to an altered beat. The needle screeching like a cat until somebody picked it up.

I remember jumping at the sudden quiet and Mama whispering, her voice an irregular heartbeat, “I don’t like the look in its eyes. I’m going to get the girls.”

I remember the door to our bedroom creeping open. A sliver of caution spilling yellow across the floor. Wildcat’s fur turning spikey and jumping off the bed. Mama scooping up my sister. Me standing up all jellyfish for legs. 

I remember lying on the couch. 

My sister still asleep on one side.

Me, on the other. 

Mama and her friends were huddled on the floor, speaking in Spanish about calling a priest. Whispers like a prayer, the fear in their voice’s hot breath in my ear. Mama’s boyfriend was shutting all the windows. Another of her friends turned out the lights. The candles on the table kept flickering like angry wind in an airtight room.

I remember someone screaming “Chicken,” and Mama silent screaming into the palm of her hand. Me following Mama’s eyes. My sister’s fingers lizard skin, with nails like talons, her nose a beak.
I remember shrinking into the couch, cheek pressed hard into a threadbare cushion. A dark shadow of a hand crossing my face. Me holding my breath. Fading to black. 

I remember my sister shaking me awake. Mama on the phone twisting the yellow curly cord between long fingers and bare nails.

Pacing.

Pacing.

An old bible and sainted candles spread across the kitchen table like a makeshift altar. And Mama asking Daddy to come and get us, please. Because something visited last night.

Some. Thing.

I remember the sweat on my skin in that sweltering apartment. And me shivering.

Karen Crawford

Karen Crawford grew up in the vibrant neighborhood of East Harlem in New York City. She currently lives in the City of Angels where she exorcises demons one word at a time.  You can find her on twitter: @KarenCrawford_ 

**

The Truth in Justice
 
Justice in its embodiment: 
The communal perspective truths 
producing a foundation. 
 
A foundation stood on by those who 
carry the weight of their fellow 
people on their conscience.  
 
But, is justice true? The essence of it 
is Truth. The execution—how you live 
out Truth—is the ethic.  
 
Feel the gravity of this reality: 
Truth is in everyone; we are born  
from it. And only those 
who think they know how Truth 
looks get to decide how  
Truth is executed.  

Mary Elizabeth Bruner

Mary Elizabeth Bruner is a 2019 Wofford College graduate living in Greenville, SC with her dog, four cats, and nine chickens. 

**

Breathed the Sky

In the early times the animals sang
all day long. They gave thanks for their food 
and took nothing for granted. There was no envy 
or greed, only yes and no. And when it was silent 
all rested in gentle peaceful calmness. In those days 
the kingfisher and the lark didn’t yet have names, 
but they knew who they were. And the heather, 
willow, and the maple, encouraged by the sun, 
made sugar and breathed the sky, and because 
of this, we can breathe too.

Daphne Clifton​

Daphne Clifton lives in Portland, Oregon, where she writes poetry, plays Renaissance music, and makes art. Her poems have appeared in Alchemy, Bellwether Review, Paper Mountains:2020 Seabeck Haiku Getaway Anthology, The Avocet, and Voices from the Mill Pond.

**



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EKPHRASTIC WRITING CHALLENGE: Elin Danielson-Gambogi

9/17/2021

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Picture
After Breakfast, by Elin Danielson-Gambogi (Finland) 1890

​Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. 


The prompt this time is After Breakfast, by Elin Danielson-Gambogi. Deadline is October 1, 2021 .

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.

Voluntary Gift of $5 CAD (about $4 USD) With Submission

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​
​The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include ELIN DANIELSON-GAMBOGI WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line. 

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, October 1, 2021.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
​
16. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages!

17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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Ekphrastic Responses: Joseph Cornell

9/10/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Planet Set, by Joseph Cornell (USA) 1950

To Joseph Cornell Regarding Planet Set, Dedicated To Giuditta Pasta

Perfection, you would have us know,
is hemispheric sky aglow
with heaven's art the eye can frame
unveiled in darkness, name by name,

amid the orbs that move beheld
in paths, unending, thus compelled
to be predestined solar set
that would its precious gems beget

of clarity in nature's glass
and man's that would for nature's pass
as crystalline in form and tone,
the beauty lent we cannot own

except as voice exquisite found
in which, divine, we hear its sound.

Portly Bard

Portly Bard: Old man.  Ekphrastic fan.

Prefers to craft with sole intent
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.

**


Atlas 

Titans aren't immortal. 
When Atlas dies he'll strike
the Earth's gong

to sound a song of death:
skies will tear 
from pole to melting pole.

Futures shrink - spheres within a sphere - 
to a single blind bead. 
You'll hear his mallet swing

and his final exhalation, 
his final exclamation:
Titans aren't immortal.

Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write full time. He is the author of over twenty books, which cover fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His creative work has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes including The Bedford Prize, The Bridport Prize, The John Clare Poetry Prize, the Ottakars/Faber and Faber Poetry Competition, the Sentinel Poetry Prize, the Sentinal Short Story Prize, and Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net.
Paul McDonald Amazon Author Page

**

A Small Box of Everything
 
I stand alone
 
Ninety degrees north
Earth rotates beneath my feet 
Every latitude begins with me
Each time zone
No time 
All time 
One pirouette describes twenty-four hours
and a trip around the world
 
The polestar identifies me
anchors above my head
Half the heavens spin around it
and around me  
All time 
No time
 
I raise a glass full of nothing
and one half full of nothing 
and one half empty
Our blue planet in another
and our virgin moon
 
Finally crystallised rock 
Formed by a force
unimaginable to me
insignificant to the stars
 
All of this 
the rest of creation
distant moons Titania and Oberon 
unleashed from their realm
held in a rough box
behind a sheet of melted sand 

Rob Joynson

Rob Joynson has written poetry for 50 years with no intention of publication. For the last few years as a member of poetry groups in Louth, Lincolnshire, and the instigator of several performance poetry events he has decided to expose his poetry to the critical gaze of the wider world. He published his first collection Of Life and Love and Interludes in 2020 and has been published by the The Ekphrastic Review.

**

An Uncharted Star*

Do you remember a celestial map
on a shelf of a laboratory
in our high school among the heap of scrap
neglected but kept its former glory?

Beside of it an assemblage of balls
expressed the planets orbiting around
the sun, but now on earth each of them falls
and they get dumped and packed in a box browned.

Though these stars are almost forgotten now
I still recall your dream you told to me
when we searched an uncharted star somehow
in the night sky and I still want to see
your comeback as a ballet star on stage
and look up your lasting shine from backstage.

Toshiji Kawagoe

* This Cornell artwork is dedicated to Giuditta Pasta, a nineteenth-century Italian opera singer.

Toshiji Kawagoe, Ph.D. is a professor at Future University Hakodate. He lives in Hokkaido, Japan. His poems in classical Chinese have been published in the anthologies of Chinese poetry and his science fiction short stories in S-F Magazine and Anotherealm. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals.

**

Boxed Love


You first came into my life
in a store on Fourth Avenue
where I found a lithograph
of you as you had been in life.

Captivated, I saw your face
rise before me like the dawn
and I had to possess you,
claim you as mine.

You won my affection 
from beyond the grave
and your ghost was safe
to pursue, no fear of rejection.

I have impossible crushes,
death ensuring they are unrequited.
I long for what cannot be,
to see you, to hear you sing.

To listen to your unique voice,
the ability you had to sing contralto
as easily as you sang soprano
and I envy Stendhal who saw you perform.

He heard what I will never hear,
he breathed the air you breathed out,
he seems like a love rival
and he is with you in the afterlife.

All I can offer you this side of the grave
is one of my boxes of discarded artifacts. 
I dedicate it to you, Giuditta Pasta.
                     Tête Etoilée.

Stephen Poole

Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. As a freelance journalist, he has written for a variety of British county and national magazines. Passionate about poetry since boyhood, his poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, LPP Magazine, and two anthologies.

**

On Planet Set by Joseph Cornell
 
I don't have much to give,
a few worn treasures
on a weathered tray
plucked from the ash heap
of a broken life.
Two shells the sea
has polished into pearl,
a row of glasses
ready to hold tears
or fine champagne,
and two maps of heaven,
the swirl of the milky way
drawn like a scarf
across night’s body,
filled with stars
that trace the outlines
of gods and monsters
measuring their way
through centuries of sky,
I offer you these
as gift and invitation,
emblem and souvenir
of the plain magic
that asks nothing more
than wonder, the held breath
of our most profound
attention.
 
Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who finds ekphrasis particularly satisfying, as it links her two major passions, art and language. She has had work appear in many print and online journals and anthologies, including The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester and The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, and the latest editions of Verse Virtual and Earth’s Daughters.
 
**

Join Up The Dots 
 
Though being one inconsequential dot in 
our universe of monumental proportion, 
we have developed technologies of 
astonishing achievement, and creativity. 
We have an insatiable palette, for exploration 
and discovery from our nose of curiosity 
protruding from psyche and skull yet 
should we inflict on other planets 
our predilection for heinous greed 
with ears tone deaf to alien suffering 
and eyes wide open only when convenient? 
 
For we are the self-proclaimed alpha anilmalia 
with unbridled capability, to induce pain on the weak 
yet we are the moral mentors to vulnerable offspring 
en pursuit of the noble fibre to join up the dots. 
 
Despite global warnings from leading indicators, 
we perch on the precipice of self-destruction - 
planet and conurbations and nodes from nature 
of plant, bird and animal endangered species - 
from egotistical aims far beyond our horizon 
of decency, of humanity, of honesty, of truth. 
While we may claim charity for the weak 
and those insecure in their own fragile skin, 
we bomb, we maim, we inflict carnage 
at the very slightest provocation. Shame, 
yet shame is but perceived weakness. 
 
Do we want to export wanton human traits 
to the fringes of our unbridled universe 
to life in an existence beyond our capability 
for peace, kindness and tenets of tolerance?

Alun Robert 

Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse. He has achieved success in poetry competitions across the British Isles and North America. His work has been published by many literary magazines, anthologies and webzines in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, India, South Africa, Kenya, USA and Canada. Since 2018, he has been part of The Ekphrastic Review community particularly enjoying the fortnightly challenges. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland for whom he was a Featured Writer in 2019.

**

Flight

Like the light escaping from under the door,
I hurried into the Milky Way, a train of starry monks,
Wiser than the moon, shining on their own.

In search of permanence akin to flying ants
Dotting the dark searching for the flames
To shed their wings and procreate,
Into a world of little known, I stepped.

The temple dome beamed gold.
The bells chimed and the chanting grew as the pastor spoke.
Earthen lamps flickered lighting up a little girl's face,
Head down, hands folded, she stood in silent prayers.
Looking to find all that had disappeared
Beyond the receding horizon, to which she could run
As the pink began to grey.

Somewhere among the trees or the muddy lanes,
Peace must be.
Unclear as to bring or let stay,
Building existence between now and then.

Abha Das Sarma

An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.

**

Safe at Last

Ah! My celestial hemispheres in a box
Three handspans across 
How much more convenient,
Less unimaginably far
Than ice caps, islands and stars
Carefully plotted on this map,
The frightening infinity of it all
If not pinned down by me
They would fly off their axis

My perspective is god like
The earth all small to me here.
To make it more homely 
I add a few tchotchkes:
A marble, conductor’s baton, shells, goblets
That sort of thing
Before the hugeness, the great unknowing
Escapes!

With god like hand I
Wrestle them into the box
Decant, filter, sieve them of 
Size, of unknown hugeness 

You’ll not find the roaring of the sea
For these shells
Or the swell and cacophony of the orchestra
For this baton
The revelry for these wine glasses…

But this manageable tidy size
Fitting on my mantelpiece 
Boxed in and boxed out
To be passed by
      Without a murmur

As if the world were not
The ogre I take it to be
But tame, caged, docile
Safe.

Lucie Payne

Lucie is a retired librarian who is writing as much as she can.

​**


Night Sky Voices -  a Duplex

I protect my cuttings, defend files, memorable charts, for 
even the most sheltered boxes sound like night skies

you found the sound of sheltered boxes quite a night sky
when the pavers under your feet signed and stirred mysteriously 

then the pavers under your feet started to wave, and mystery stirred,
saved the charts that work as carbon-copies of her voice

how may charts save the carbon-copy work of her voice, 
and when did I become the bachelor of calm and clouds?

When the muse of clouds turned me into a bachelor of calm, 
I sang to the sky in even waves, my world right in your hands

my even sky you sang to, waving the world right with your hands
that could never caress me, that forever set my mind surreal

that I forever should mind, still I caress the thoughts that set surreals 
in files, as I cut time, protect memories, and map out superstars.

Kate Copeland

Kate Copeland started absorbing stories ever since a little lass. Her love for words led her to teaching and translating some silvery languages; her love for art, water & writing led her to poetry...with publications sealed already! You can find her poems @ The Ekphrastic Review, Hedgehog Press, The Poetry Barn x Poetry Distillery, The Spirit Fire Review, First Lit.Review-East, GrandLittleThings & The Metaworker. Kate was born in Rotterdam some 51 ages ago and adores housesitting in the UK, USA and in Spain.

**


is that all there is
 
I am traveling the world is also traveling and together we blue latitude and longitude the oceans mapped with interchangeable stars and isn’t that always the way I’ll drink to that
 
magician checking the schedule cape that glitters hat pulled low who is he really and where do the planets go the planets turning the universe expanding and why does it always say end and dead
 
but meantime everything is moving beyond is watching blurring falling behind but where is when and why is it always between the getting on the getting off the port of call unanswered just keep moving 
 
crossing riding piling up gone but mostly not stopping it must be the wind or maybe a wave both sides around repeating maybe and maybe not the focus shifting now the other side is turning all
 
transparent only ghosts where am I going wasn’t this supposed to be a journey with a destination yet it’s taking all my time I didn’t even say hello hello I don’t know why and then goodbye will I return
 
again once maybe am I when is it how now about tomorrow here and every step is sideways holding fast the way to never in this blue blue orb I don’t know who is what and how is where is it or not

Kerfe Roig

Kerfe Roig has always enjoyed visiting the worlds created by Joseph Cornell.

**

World in Motion
 
My daughter, hysterical,
wakes me in the middle of the night
to drive her to the hospital.
 
In the private ER waiting room, the father cries
as he tells how he had tried to hold her up 
and call 911 at the same time. Failed.  He curses 
the boyfriend who’d broken up with her 
by text from the Army, threatens to kill him.
 
The divorced parents talk
of their daughter’s manic-depression,
maybe she’d be luckier not to live.
 
My yellow hoodie shrouds my face somewhat, 
protects the back of my neck from hospital
cold as stress clenches every muscle. 
 
The second hand on the round Pegasus 
clock ticks audibly 360 degrees,
a mechanical pulse measuring interminable
moments of anguish as the night creeps by.
 
A van pulls up to the ER drop off. A man hops 
from the driver’s side, not bothering to shut the door. 
He runs through the ER doors and returns
to the passenger side with a wheelchair. 
He rushes his laboring wife past me, 
as a nurse instructs them to take the elevator
on the left to the maternity wing. 
 
In the security office next to the entrance 
sits a box labeled “human organs.” 
Printed on the side are icons
for various body parts—one of them eyes.
 
We wait hours for a specialist. My daughter slumps 
on the berm of the parking lot with her friend. 
 
Near the hospital entrance
a pair of rabbits frolics on the small lawn.

The specialist comes and goes.
My daughter and her girlfriend
are allowed to say good-bye to their friend. 
 
The sculpture in the hospital visitors’ entrance
a large granite boulder—perfectly round gray, 
is designed to roll continuously when the water flows
beneath it. As the morning shift arrives,
a custodian turns on the water, 
sets the world in motion.

 Jeanne Blum Lesinski

An author of nonfiction and poetry, Jeanne Blum Lesinski writes for journals, lifestyle and gardening magazines, anthologies, and online sites. When not at her computer, she can often be found on a bicycle path, in a garden, or deep in a book. Recent work has appeared in Non-Binary Review, the Alphanumeric podcast, and F3LL. She is a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review Women Artists contest.

**

Night Sky

for Giuditta
 
Her voice, high soprano
reaches for the night sky,
universal sound permeates
atmosphere, crystalline notes
held; Giuditta’s hand rises
into spotlight as moon ascends.
 
His tribute, love from afar,
shadowbox altar worthy of  her
praise; were she with him,
hands clasped to her breast.
 
Voice rising in pitch, her 
shattered crystals shower him 
with joy, amidst broken glass, 
face streaming with tears, eyes
raised with her to night sky.
 
Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson has seen La Traviata and other operas, but more can appreciate art from which to write poetry. Visual prompts, she finds intriguing and challenging. Nature, animals and water always spark poetry as well; her two rescued feral cats standing by for the first reading. Misfit, Open Door, Sledgehammer and The Ekphrastic Review are among the many journals where Dickson's work can be found, as well as full length works on Amazon.
​
**


Cornell’s Planet Set Tanka
 
singing their Earth song
an artist’s scavenged objects
on dowling rods two balls
create new alignments 
planets orbiting the sun
 
cyan blue marble
the hemisphere’s colours
this day he recalls
the resonance between the
heavens and the individual
 
he locks a shadow box
celestial navigation charts
stars clinging to it
like silver webs on the wind
full moon lunar tides

Ilona Martonfi

Ilona Martonfi is a poet, editor, literary curator, and activist; she is the author of four poetry books, Blue Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009), Black Grass (Broken Rules Press, 2012), The Snow Kimono (Inanna Publications, 2015) and Salt Bride (Inanna Publications, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna Publications, 2022). Her work has published in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Recently, her poem "My Brother's Ashes" was nominated by The Ekphrastic Review for the Best Microfiction Awards Anthology, 2021. She is the curator of Visual Arts Centre and Argo Bookshop Reading Series. She is also the recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award.

**

The Moment the Womb Unravels

We all want to run our own Broadway show
leave these trappings of time and place
the moment the womb unravels its innards. 
Each body, each person is a wilting-flower vase.
 
We’re all departmentalized into this world.
Boxed contents, the volume of which is equal
and yet disproportionate, whatever vibrations  
shape their path; the framework of these people.
 
They are all the same, glass half full, half-empty, 
They are like a divided ocean pivoting 
one way and then another moment another way
we’re all internationally, globally, commingling,
 
mingling ah, all of creation, creation is singing
listen to the hummingbird, the common nightingale 
listen to the New Guinea singing dog howl 
listen to the gibbon and the common quail.
 
This world has its very own reggae-roots-musician,
a music baton in an otherworldly "conductor's hand" 
this world is a singing beluga whale 
the musical notations, connotations of which, 
we’ll never understand. 
 
Mark Andrew Heathcote

Mark Andrew Heathcote is adult learning difficulties support worker, his poetry has been published in many journals, magazines and anthologies, he resides in the UK, from Manchester, Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth two books of poems published by a CTU publishing group, Creative Talents Unleashed.

**

Three Haikus


Planet

Rotating planet.
Moving beings all around,
circling the sun.

Earth

Gravity and life,
moon circling the planet,
earth’s floating forces.

Full Circle

Coming full circle,
air, gravity, and life forms,
earth interlocking.

Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna.

**

Voice of an Angel

Once I thought love
would be enough
to fly us away
spinning 
past planets and stars
reaching up to them
breaking through 
the atmosphere
to grasp that moment
and put it in a glass,
our own shining orb
that would stay forever
gleaming and shimmering
and singing at my touch
with the pure notes of
the voice of an angel
breaking through 
the atmosphere,
your voice
a voice so pure
it will never shatter
the glass.

It’s lustre has faded now
but it will stay forever
a still shining sphere
in my memories 
and dreams.

Lynn White

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

**

Night Shift at the Observatory 
 
A liqueur glass  
tilted on a balanced shelf  
upholding celestial heavens  
cradles the eye of the world  
as it wavers between  
north  
 
and south  
six crystal glasses  
host the opera singer’s top notes 
trapped in raw quartz. 
 
Venus swirls  
then swigs a shot of medicinal herbs  
shocks the stagehand 
into raising the curtain.  
 
Perfect number,  
perfect crystal,  
infinity held  
in two wooden balls  
rolling on a pair  
of doweling rods.  

Suzy Aspell 

Suzy lives and works in Luton, Bedfordshire, UK. Her work has appeared in Sledgehammer Lit, Spelt Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review and Wombwell Rainbow. Suzy wrote and directed two plays for the Civic Centre in Tainan, Taiwan, on British pantomime theme and is currently working towards a poetry pamphlet. 

**

The Aqua Game Board
 
Our Celestial Hemisphere game board 
hangs on the wall. It’s a diorama box 
with two aqua maps of constellations
above a shelf with six tulip glasses. 
 
We roll the dice of coordinates 
to see where we land on Northern
and Southern sky views, and drop  
a clear or aqua glass ball into a cup. 
 
If we land in the Milky Way, we 
move a clear sphere into the next cup. 
If we land on a celestial body, we move
a blue sphere.  On rainy days, 
 
there are two white croquet balls 
on a railing above the hemispheres; 
we take them down to push around 
on the carpet. We direct each 
 
snowy ball through chair 
and table legs with a wooden wand, 
and carefully replace everything
back on the wall when finished.
 
But now this game says, water.
Its aqua spheres look like a flooded
earth where water seeps from melting 
snowcaps and tropical storms stream
 
rivers of muck into subway tunnels.
I want to jettison this Humpty Dumpty
board game which keeps me playing 
while earth goes overboard. I’ve cracked
 
glass game pieces and drained the magic 
from the wand. There’s no water to douse 
wildfires, as all the king’s horses, and all 
the king’s men are nowhere to be found.

Melinda Thomsen
​
Melinda Thomsen’s book full length Armature was just released from Hermit Feathers Press, and Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Naming Rights and Field Rations. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, The Comstock Review, and others. Find her at @ThomsenMelinda

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Congratulations to Jennifer Leigh Selig, winner of our ekphrastic flash summer vacation contest. Click on image above to read her story!
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Don't miss out on the sauciest contest in ekphrastic history...Adults Only teases you with sixty sex-themed works from art history. Our guest judge is the one and only Alexis Rhone Fancher. Click on image for instructions and to order your inspiration book.
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SUMMER EKPHRASTIC FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNER!

9/5/2021

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The Little Deer, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico) 1946

Thank you to everyone who entered our How I Spent My Summer Vacation ekphrastic flash fiction contest. We are pleased to announce the winner is Jennifer Leigh Selig with her story, "Resignation Letter." Congratulations, Jennifer! 

Please share this story on your social media and help spread the word and the work of our amazing writers.


**

Resignation Letter

Dear Memoir Students,

As you know, I took the summer away from our ongoing course in order to finally fully tend to my own writing. I spent two months trampling through the forest of my memory, leaving many a broken branch in my wake. I wrote nine pieces in total, and each one cost me dearly. Hear no hyperbole when I tell you this—each piece felt like a near-death experience. 

I am writing to offer you my deepest regrets. Now that I fully understand the costs of memoir writing, which I have been so ignorantly extracting from you for years now, I cannot in good faith continue to mete out such punishment. I apologize for dismissing your cries of but this is hard. It is hard, outrageously so. The past is full of too many slings and arrows. It is to be avoided. 

Therefore, I am pleased to inform you that I am resigning as your writing teacher, effective immediately. In the words of Frida Kahlo, “I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return.” I set you free, my little dears. Run, run, run—run for your lives. Run away from your past, and run into your future. Run for, run with, run toward your own joy. 

Stay present,
Your Teacher

​Jennifer Leigh Selig

Jennifer Leigh Selig is a lifelong educator with 33 years of classroom experience, teaching in the fields of literature, psychology, creativity studies, and the humanities. She’s also a prolific writer, authoring dozens of newspaper articles, book reviews, journal articles, 3 screenplays, and is either the author, editor, contributor, or publisher of over 40 books, including Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit. To see some of those titles, visit her publishing company, www.mandorlabooks.com. 


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Ekphrastic Challenge: Onabanjo of Itu Meko

9/3/2021

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Magbo Helmet for Oro Association Rituals, by Onabanjo of Itu Meko (Yoruba People) (Nigeria) c. 1880-1910

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. 

The prompt this time is Magbo Helmet, by Onabanjo of Itu Meko . Deadline is September 17, 2021 .

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.
CA$5.00

Voluntary gift of $5 CAD with submission.

GIVE
The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include Onabanjo of Itu Meko  WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line. 

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, September 17, 2021.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
​
16. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages!

17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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